KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On Jan. 20, 2024, middle school students across the region will work in teams to present an essay, model and project plan of what their future city will be like at the University of Tennessee College of Engineering. The students will be competing in the "Future City" Tennessee regional competition, which is in its seventh year of being hosted by LDA Engineering.
"During the first couple steps, you have to work together with a team," said Anderson Vasquez Francisco, an eighth-grader at Northwest Middle School, who has previously competed in the competition. "And you guys have to collaborate, come up with, like, a sketch for what you guys plan on doing and creating for the problem that like the future city problem."
This year's theme is "Electrify Your Future" and students have to design a city that will be completely powered by electricity. The energy source must also keep citizens and the environment healthy and safe.
The competition has students apply science, technology, engineering, and math skills to solve real-world problems.
"I think it's important to get kids involved in STEM just because we are always going to need more people in STEM," said Paige Lowe, an engineer at LDA Engineering. "And we need different kinds of people in STEM. And I think that this program, and just STEM outreach in general kind of gets more different people involved."
But in order to make the competition run smoothly, more volunteers and judges are needed. Volunteers are asked to register by Jan. 8. The total time commitment is between four and eight hours, and a background in STEM is not required.
"We could not do it without getting all the professionals who are volunteering their time for helping this competition happen," said Tracy Anderson, a STEM teacher at Northwest Middle School. "I'd say any people involved in design, art, architecture, architectural design, engineering, civil engineering, any kind of engineering, surveying all kinds of things. We could use your help, we could use your help as volunteer judges."
In addition to teaching students more about STEM and career paths, it also serves as a way to introduce STEM to under-represented groups.
Amelia Reisner, an eighth grader at Northwest Middle School who is competing for the first time this year, said she's into science and that's why she started taking STEM classes. She says encouraging STEM is important because it helps push more women into STEM.
"What I found on the Future City website is every year we're getting more girls for Future City," said Reisner. "So it's kind of like leading more girls and like women into like STEM programs, and like STEM careers."
The team that wins first place in the region goes on to compete nationally, in Washington D.C.